Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like The Sound and the Fury
The best books like The Sound and the Fury are The Grapes of Wrath, Homage to Catalonia, and Man's Search for Meaning. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner is about decline and decay, memory and time, race and the american south. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- The Grapes of Wrath
01
John Steinbeck · Literary fiction
The Grapes of Wrath is Steinbeck's 1939 novel about the Joad family, Oklahoma sharecroppers forced off their land by the Dust Bowl and bank foreclosure, who load everything they own onto a truck and drive Route 66 to California in search of work and a decent life.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Homage to Catalonia
02
George Orwell · Memoir
Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's firsthand account of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, which he joined in late 1936 as a volunteer with the POUM militia — a Trotskyist revolutionary organization that was later suppressed by the Soviet-backed Stalinist wing of the Republican forces.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Man's Search for Meaning
03
Viktor E. Frankl · Psychology
Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's account of his years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and the psychological theory he developed from that experience.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Bell Jar
04
Sylvia Plath · Memoir
The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel, published in January 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, one month before Plath's death.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Between the World and Me
05
Ta-Nehisi Coates · Memoir
Between the World and Me is a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son, Samori, about what it means to live in a Black body in the United States.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Lincoln in the Bardo
06
George Saunders · Literary fiction
Lincoln in the Bardo takes place over a single night in February 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln visits the crypt where his eleven-year-old son Willie has just been buried.
Both dig into grief and loss.
Read the summary → - My Struggle: Book 1
07
Karl Ove Knausgaard · Literary fiction
My Struggle: Book 1 opens with a long meditation on death — the image of a dead face on television, the cultural rituals that hide corpses from view — before settling into what the book is actually about: Knausgaard's childhood in Norway in the 1970s and early 80s, and his adult journey to clean out the house where his alcoholic father died.
Both dig into memory and time.
Read the summary → - Norwegian Wood
08
Haruki Murakami · Literary fiction
Norwegian Wood is Murakami's most straightforwardly realist novel and his most personal — a coming-of-age story set in late 1960s Tokyo, narrated by Toru Watanabe, who is recalling the year he was nineteen and the two women who shaped him.
Both dig into grief and loss.
Read the summary → - The Catcher in the Rye
09
J. D. Salinger · Literary fiction
Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from Pencey Prep — his fourth school — and is not ready to go home and tell his parents.
Both dig into grief and loss.
Read the summary → - The Goldfinch
10
Donna Tartt · Literary fiction
The Goldfinch begins with a bombing in a New York museum.
Both dig into grief and loss.
Read the summary → - The Lovely Bones
11
Alice Sebold · Literary fiction
The Lovely Bones is narrated by Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl who has been murdered by her neighbor and is watching her family from her personal heaven.
Both dig into family dissolution.
Read the summary → - Firefly Lane
12
Kristin Hannah · Contemporary fiction
Tully Hart and Kate Mularkey meet in the summer of 1974 as fourteen-year-olds on Firefly Lane in rural Washington State, and their friendship spans three decades — through high school, college, careers in television journalism, marriages, and heartbreak.
Both dig into grief and loss.
Read the summary →
Books like The Sound and the Fury: quick answers
What are the best books like The Sound and the Fury?
The best books like The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner are The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Sound and the Fury, such as decline and decay, memory and time, race and the american south.
What should I read after The Sound and the Fury?
A natural next read after The Sound and the Fury is The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
What books are similar to The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner?
The Sound and the Fury centers on decline and decay, memory and time, race and the american south. Books with a similar feel include The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
